I'm wondering how everyone's warmwater season is going. I'm having a blast figuring out the quarry pond near my house. It has an average depth of over 65 feet, but many flats that come up to about 4 or 5 feet. There isn't an abundance of structure, so when I find a slab of concrete, some stumps, or a blowdown, it's usually loaded with fish. The bass are decent, and the sunfish are monsters. I've already caught a few over one pound on deer hair bass bugs.

I still haven't chased the smallmouths with my usual fervor. I'm close to the CT River and not to far from the Housatonic which is fishing great right now for the smallies. So much water, so little time.....

I still have trips planned in NH when I visit my in-laws. These will involve rock bass, crappie, smallmouths, perch, and pickeral. And then there's the visits to my family in Maine, a veritable smallmouth heaven.

So how's everybody else progressing? I hope it's been good for you so far.

I seem to be specializing in sunfish this year My fishing time is down to the odd 1/2 hr a couple of days a week and I often end up fishing for them. Overall, I'd have to agree with you on their size this year. It seems like people are listening to the signs on possible contamination and not eating the big ones.

Other than sunfish its been ocassional bass, when I startt out looking for them. I've been looking for carp with no success yet.

Smallys I have't gotten to yet. Its time to bring my son back to wachusset reservoir and try for them.

So far, so good! Since this is my first year of flyfishing, I've been trying to catch as many different species as possible on the fly rod. I've gotten most of the usual suspects but still need to round up a few more, including pike, tiger muskie, rainbow trout, brown trout and BS salmon (or maybe even a real one :hehe: ). Lake trout, walleye and catfish would be welcome (but unlikely) bonuses.

I've mastered catching sunfish on foam bugs and have done pretty well with largemouth and smallmouth bass on poppers. I finally managed to get a carp and will definitely try for more of them. I even lucked into a few big brookies (2+ lbs ) courtesy of the Montague Fish Hatchery (I had a little inside information on where to look for them :hehe: ).

I'm also happy that a couple of my experimental flies seem to work pretty well. These flies were designed to be fly rod versions of two of my favorite spinning lures: the Slug-Go and the floating Rapala. I'll need to do some more testing and modification before I add them to the archives.

My plans for the near future include trying to catch more carp, putting in some time on the local river to fish for pike and tiger muskies, trying to get a bass to hit my dragonfly while it's still in the air, and figuring out a way to catch the BIG largemouths that live deep in the milfoil beds at this time of year. Maybe I could use a 20' leader and a heavily weighted "fly"?

So far so good here in the Finger Lakes too. I just got back from the state park near my house. I took the girls down there to swim while I cast a nymph off of the point. The tally tonight was four smallmouth - which I was happy with. I was thinking that I would end up catching all sunnies and rock bass but it turned out otherwise.

Last weekend I made several outings with new kayak. I was targeting the carp which cruise along the shallows but so far have been unsuccessful with them. After reading the spin fishing stories from Quentin I'm not sure it's even a good idea . I can just see myself getting towed around for hours out in the lake after hooking one. Some of the carp I have seen are huge- I think 30 plus pounds. We'll see anyway. The nice thing is that I have been catching some nice bass while fishing for the carp. Last weekend caught several large and smallmouth- both in the same area- and all around 16 inches.

We'll see what the holiday brings - with this hot weather it sure is nice to be on/in the water!

Geoff, I'll echo John's welcome and comments. Nice to hear of your fishing locations, especially that spot where you're taking largemouths and smallmouths. Any spot that can produce both species is a gem in my book.

There's plenty of info here, and plenty of camaraderie. Glad to have you contribute.

Thanks for the welcoming guys. I'm headed off to visit my Mom up near Sandy Creek NY. There are some nice little ponds and secluded bays off of the eastern end of Lake Ontario that I hope to get out on with the kayak. Good pike fishing up there. I'll let you know how I make out. It finally cooled down a bit here.